IndyBlog

The wrath of Dog

According to this aggressively pink website, Senate Majority Leader John Morse has done it now.

‘Dog The Bounty Hunter’ says he may be forced into retirement if a Colorado politician’s bill is voted into law and while the pol is ducking Dog, the fugitive-chaser’s fans are hounding him!

State Sen. John Morse introduced a bill that would basically put bail bondsmen out of business and, say critics, flood the streets with criminals.

Why would the state senator from Colorado Springs, a former Fountain police chief, want to pass a bill that would throw open the doors at county jails? Sounds pretty terrible, right? But we're pretty sure that this reputably pink news outlet, Radar, hasn't done their due diligence in reporting the story (shocked!).

What Morse has proposed, which has so enraged Dog, is a bill that would introduce deposit bonds, a bonding option that judge's could use when releasing a defendant before trial. In essence, deposit bonds would allow a defendant to post up to 15 percent of their set bail not to the private bondsman but directly to the courts. Half of that money would go to fund the county's pretrial services, and the other half could be returned to the defendant if he is found not guilty. If he is found guilty, then the defendant's 50 percent would be used to pay off restitution and other fees associated with his trial.

The word was that Dog was going to head to Denver to lobby against the bill, just as he had done back in 2008 when similar legislation was proposed.

The most glaring oversight in the criticism that Radar and others, like Dog and his legion of Twitter fans, have leveled against Morse's bill is to paint it as liberal, anti-business, and pro-government while completely ignoring the fact that Rep. Mark Waller is sponsoring the bill in the House.

Waller, a Colorado Springs Republican, isn't exactly someone who'd be comfortable with being described as soft on crime and anti-business. In fact, he told me when I was writing our article on the issue a few weeks back that he considers this a smart-on-crime bill that will enhance public safety while creating a pool of money that might lessen the burdens on counties.